Someone's looking for a business writer for a book about guaranteed strategies to make a million dollars online. It seems like they want about one strategy per page for a 50- to 60-page book..

Fixed Budget = $75.

That comes to about $1 a strategy when you take off the freelancer fee.

I believe clients should be more heartily encouraged to think things through before posting. Even if I only had one strategy for making a million online, would I be here looking for $75 jobs? (Okay, there's the obvious payoff of being able to laugh myself silly over ads like this... but still...)

Hahahaha sorry for creeping in on an old post, but I’m new on the platform and I’m already dealing with the stuff you’re mentioning. It really helps to read about the experiences others have had; it makes me feel like I still live in the real world on those days when I see posts about ghostwriting a book on foreign policy for 12$ and I’m wondering if I’ve been transported to an ulterior reality. Or if there’s a hidden camera somewhere 🤣

(this was an invite, sent to me by a Talent Specialist btw - double joy)

Yes, these are always a special joy, especially since there might be 1 in the pile of 99 they send me that could potentially be useful and I don't want to miss it. Unfortunately, I missed one the other day that looked like it might have at least been worth responding to because client looked like a good contact. Even though the job might not have been a good fit, it looks like he might potentially have others that could be a better fit.

I find it hard to pinpoint what the specific talents of the Talent Specialists might be. If my assumptions are correct, I think there might be a not-particularly-bright Artificial Intelligence component attached to what the "Talent Specialists" distribute. I see a lot of stuff about machine learning applications in my work, and I think this might is similar to the "hybrid intelligence" systems I see people proposing. So in this case, I think the "Talent Specialist" might actually be a system where an AI sorts the jobs and compares them to known freelancers based on keywords and then sends them to the "specialist" humans who review them. This is supposed to be a way making certain types of tasks more efficient.

On the other hand, it could be that the Talent Specialists are just a lot of people who haven't been trained properly, don't have any specific HR knowledge, and are completely in the dark about what they're supposed to be doing.

(this was an invite, sent to me by a Talent Specialist btw - double joy)

Yes, these are always a special joy, especially since there might be 1 in the pile of 99 they send me that could potentially be useful and I don't want to miss it. Unfortunately, I missed one the other day that looked like it might have at least been worth responding to because client looked like a good contact. Even though the job might not have been a good fit, it looks like he might potentially have others that could be a better fit.

I find it hard to pinpoint what the specific talents of the Talent Specialists might be. If my assumptions are correct, I think there might be a not-particularly-bright Artificial Intelligence component attached to what the "Talent Specialists" distribute. I see a lot of stuff about machine learning applications in my work, and I think this might is similar to the "hybrid intelligence" systems I see people proposing. So in this case, I think the "Talent Specialist" is actually a system where an AI sorts the jobs and compares them to known freelancers based on keywords and then sends them to the "specialist" humans who review them. This is supposed to be a way making certain types of tasks, like for instance scheduling, more efficient.

On the other hand, it could be that the Talent Specialists are just a lot of people who haven't been trained properly, don't have any specific HR knowledge, and are completely in the dark about what they're supposed to be doing.

Or it could be a hybrid of both.

RE; On the other hand, it could be that the Talent Specialists are just a lot of people who haven't been trained properly, don't have any specific HR knowledge, and are completely in the dark about what they're supposed to be doing.

RE; On the other hand, it could be that the Talent Specialists are just a lot of people who haven't been trained properly, don't have any specific HR knowledge, and are completely in the dark about what they're supposed to be doing.

I am going with the above.

Actually, it might sound like science fiction, but there are a few companies that have been developing this sort of stuff. This one is called "Julie Desk." It's funny, but systems like this (especially when they don't work well) really emphasize things that humans are especially good at --- handling complex information that requires discernment and critical thinking. I don't fully support this type of approach because I don't like the idea of removing any more jobs from the available pool of work. The idea that's generally used to justify development of these kinds of systems is that they're removing mundane and repetitious tasks from people's work lives, but I suspect somewhere down the line it's more about hiring fewer people to handle a higher volume of work. At least that's what I can see as a potential for companies implementing them.

I guess we could argue whether computers are measurably worse at this than untrained humans. The offers I receive have me wondering whether the mistakes I notice are actually too crazy to be normal human ones -- although, granted, this is an incredibly hard thing to gauge. I was once invited to interview for a job as the director of an online law school. I think I helped a lawyer out with two of her blog posts at one point, but personally, I think it's a bit of a stretch for me to apply to be the director using this experience as a qualification. Maybe I should be flattered. At least they're offering me really high-level unsuitable suggestions.

RE; On the other hand, it could be that the Talent Specialists are just a lot of people who haven't been trained properly, don't have any specific HR knowledge, and are completely in the dark about what they're supposed to be doing.

I am going with the above.

I think this might be the most likely scenario, but after having probed the JSS issue in some depth, I'm no longer so sure things on this platform are governed by straightforward thinkers.

People are always talking about the wonders made possible by innovative thinking. I like the idea of condicting a thought experiment to explore just how far a "hybrid unintelligence" could really take us. I used to work in a large, convoluted organization, so I know the potential is beyond even our wildest imagnings. But then again, the fallout from innovative management approaches in large organizations also fuels things like Dilbert cartoons. I guess you can't have one without the other.